We love random memes; we like the nonsensical chaos that they bring. Yet we're starting to dislike the chaotic Internet from which they are born. What was once fun and exciting, nowadays brings us only anxiety, rage, and exhaustion.
In 2023, right before the New Year, The Wall Street Journal published a story about how people don't post on social media as much as they used to. They mention that 61% of Americans say they've become more selective about what they post on social media.
Folks don't really like being on social media anymore, either. They feel that no matter which platform you go on, it's just too divisive, full of bots and trolls, and chaos in general. Others point out that social media are becoming more about selling a product than fostering relationships between people.
"Facebook, Instagram—many of these platforms have been excessively commercialized to the point where they lost their immediacy, the sense of place they afforded, the sense of community they facilitated, the sense of belonging they offered," Zizi Papacharissi, who studies internet trends, told NPR.
Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are not about keeping up with your friends anymore. They're platforms for people to build an audience and be heard on a much wider scale. Tech correspondent Julia Alexander likens today's social media platforms to media centers. "We open apps like Instagram more and more like we do YouTube: Unconsciously, repetitively, for longer periods of time."
We don't go on the Internet to connect anymore, we go there to engage in brainrot. "We may not even recognize many of the people we see, and we think of our time on these apps as a form of wasting time on the internet (that is, leisure) rather than connecting with people in our own lives," Alexander writes. "We are posting less to consume more."
40 years ago, the Internet wasn't mainstream. Even around 15 years ago, your aunt and grandma certainly weren't on Facebook posting their political beliefs and liking fake news articles. Digital anthropologist Giles Crouch writes that the Internet went mainstream when capitalism started permeating it.
He adds to the idea that the Internet has become pretty chaotic. "Navigating a news media site to actually get to the article you want to read has become a nightmare. Streaming services are taking us back to the age of regular cable TV with ads. Social Media platforms have lost sight of humans and started chasing each other's algorithms. They're failing," he concludes.
